The work with four-year-olds helped to narrow the skills gap between boys from higher and lower socio-economic backgrounds, according to researchers from University College London's Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).
The study found that all children benefit from early schooling, but the average effects are weaker compared to those for disadvantaged boys - who carried the impact on cognitive and non-cognitive skills into the final year of primary school.
The report, Early School Exposure, Test Scores and Noncognitive Outcomes, includes data analysis of more than 400,000 children born in 2000/2001 attending state schools in England.
It found providing an additional term (four months) of early schooling for disadvantaged boys increased their test scores in language and numeracy at age five by up to 20 per cent.
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